


next to godliness

by asterismal (asterisms)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22025809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterisms/pseuds/asterismal
Summary: Once upon a time, Voldemort made a Horcrux from a single mote of dust.Years later, little Harry Potter encounters an uncleanable spot of dirt.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 343
Collections: Flashing into the New Year





	next to godliness

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [Chaotic_Smutty (Anna_Hopkins)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Chaotic_Smutty) in the [flashing_into_the_new_year](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/flashing_into_the_new_year) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Tom, in a surprisingly rational move, makes a Horcrux out of a single mote of dust. Years later, uncleanable dirt is making Harry's life hell at the Dursleys'.

Harry Potter is a very clean boy. 

He washes his hands whenever he uses the toilet and before he helps Aunt Petunia in the kitchen. He wipes his shoes before he comes inside, and he is careful to always hang his coat on the hook. He even bathes by himself (has been doing so for years), and he  _ always  _ washes behind his ears. He's nothing at all like Dudley, who tracks mud across the floors and leaves greasy fingerprints on the walls. 

He thinks he’s probably a freak (because everyone always says so, and how common is it really that  _ everyone  _ is wrong?), and he’s certain his parents must have hated him, to leave him with the Dursleys, but he isn’t lazy, and he isn’t a burden, and he isn’t  _ dirty. _

He makes sure of it.

And then one day, he finds a spot of dirt on his face that he can’t wipe off. 

He doesn’t panic. 

Because he  _ knows  _ how to clean himself, thank you very much. Only, nothing works. He scrubs and he adds extra soap to his towel and he even scratches with his fingernail, but it won’t. Come. Off. 

He throws his towel to the floor, and he stomps on it, and he thinks he might even cry.

And then, with a furtive glance at the door, he sniffs and wipes his sleeve across his eyes. He picks up the towel, and he wrings it out over the sink, and then he folds it and hangs it back in its place. He looks into the mirror, scratches just once more at the spot that won’t come off. 

Then he huffs, rubs his eyes one last time, and goes to finish his chores. 

“What’s that on your face, boy?” Aunt Petunia asks the next time she sees him.

Harry sets his small shoulders, wrings his clean hands. 

“It’s dirt, Aunt Petunia,” he says. 

And his aunt wrinkles her nose and whips her towel at him, and the sting against his ear makes his eyes water again. When he doesn’t move, her lips pinch into a frown. “Well?” she snaps. She points to the hall. “Go wash it off.”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he says, and he goes to try again.

He rubs and he scratches, but nothing works. All it does is turn the skin of his cheek bright red. 

“Why won’t you come off?” he asks, doing his very best to make his voice low and growly, like his uncle whenever he talks about  _ those people, _ whoever they are. 

The spot doesn’t answer. It doesn’t do anything else, either.

He might call it magic, if magic weren’t a dirty and evil word. Only… That fits pretty well, he thinks, because so is this  _ spot.  _ And, really, wouldn’t it be cool to have a magic spot (even if it was dirty and evil)? He prods at it with his finger, and suddenly it doesn’t seem so bad. 

He imagines what Aunt Petunia might say if he told her his spot was magic, and he giggles. 

And the spot moves. 

He flinches back, and then he feels silly. “Hello,” he whispers, hopping up to kneel on the counter, pressing his face right up to the mirror, and he feels even sillier. 

Then the spot moves again. 

He rubs at it, because it tickles, and when he looks back in the mirror, the spot is gone. In his surprise, he forgets Aunt Petunia’s rules, and he presses his hand to the glass as he leans closer. It’s then that he sees his spot has moved from his face to the side of his thumb.

“Oh, how clever!” Harry says to his spot. It shrinks, then grows big enough to cover the back of his hand with dirt and dust. It’s happy, he knows, though surely  _ most _ spots don’t have emotions. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“BOY!” Aunt Petunia raps at the door. “Haven’t you finished, yet?”

Harry quickly slides down from the counter, in case she comes in and catches him breaking a rule, and says, “Not yet, Aunt Petunia.”

“Well, hurry up.” She raps at the door again. The spot quivers on his hand, leaking dirt onto the floor. “I won’t have dinner be late due to your dawdling.”

Harry cups his hand beneath the spot to catch the dirt before it falls. He already cleaned this floor today, and he doesn’t want to do it again.  “Yes, Aunt Petunia.”

Aunt Petunia’s footsteps click away, and he carefully nudges the door open. Once he’s looked both ways, he sticks his hand out and slaps the spot onto the wall near the floor, where the Dursleys are unlikely to see it on account of always having their noses in the air.

He whispers, “Stay here.” 

And then he goes to help Aunt Petunia with dinner. 

The next time he enters the hall, the spot has moved. 

“Argh, spot!” he exclaims, crouching down to peel it off of the floor. It’s grown since he left it, as if it's eaten up the dust on the floor, which, now that Harry is paying attention, looks suspiciously clean where the spot used to be. “What are you down here for? You could have gotten stepped on!”

The spot grows to cover his whole hand, and he laughs. 

“You want more dust, don’t you,” he says, and the spot quivers again, puffing a cloud of dust into the air. Harry sneezes, then says, “Well, good! I know just the place for you.”

He listens to make sure none of the Dursleys are coming, and then he unlatches his cupboard door and sticks the spot inside. 

“There,” he says, proud of his good idea. “Now you can move or grow as big as you want, and no one will see you but me.”

And spots, even magic ones, can't talk. 

But as he closes the door, patting it gently as he does, he knows his spot is happy.


End file.
